Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, HCMR (OSD2018-2019 coordinators), Crete, Greece; Sampling at stations OSD5, OSD228 and 229 was performed with the R/V Aegaeo of HCMR

Video from the Facility of Sciences of Oujda, Morocco

EMBRC-ERIC supports the continuation of OSD

With this announcement we wish to inform the OSD consortium that following the success and appeal of OSD events, the EMBRC ERIC infrastructure http://www.embrc.eu/ will offer long-term support to the continuation of OSD. Through the ASSEMBLE PLUS project, EMBRC will support the transition of the logistics and operation of OSD. Being a self-sustained European Infrastructure, EMBRC can secure the long-term operation of OSD and its step-by-step expansion to additional ecosystem components and in coordination with the global Genomics Observatories consortium.

We thank Professor Frank Oliver Glöckner and the Micro B3 community for having made OSD a global event, as well as for supporting EMBRC in its engagement in securing the long-term operation of OSD.

Starting this year and targeting June 21st 2018, EMBRC, through the ASSEMBLE Plus project (http://www.assembleplus.eu/) is supporting an open call to participate in Ocean Sampling Day events on June 21.

The Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research in Heraklion, Crete (IMBBC-HCMR), an EMBRC partner, will coordinate the upcoming events of 2018 and 2019 and will be the recipient of samples to be submitted for sequencing. In 2018, samples will be sequenced for 16S and 18S rDNA (meta-barcoding), while in 2019 all samples (including the ones of 2018) will be sequenced for metagenomics. As there has been some discontinuation of OSD, OSD 2018 will be a test drive to prepare a really global OSD 2019 event that will be supported broadly by EMBRC.

If you have already been involved in past OSD events, you are associated with a marine research site, research cruise or a sailor/skipper, and would like to participate in OSD, we would kindly ask you to express your interest by contacting us.

Contact

For any questions, information, or assistance, contact the OSD-IMBBC team by sending an email to osd-contact@embrc.eu. The contact persons of IMBBC-HCMR are: Paraskevi (Voula) N. Polymenakou, Researcher at IMBBCMelanthia (Melina) Stavroulaki, Researcher at IMBBCJRA1 Coordinator:Georgos Kotoulas, Research Director at IMBBC

Sampling Protocols and Metadata

We will follow the detailed Protocols A for prokaryotes and B for eukaryotes as described in the Ocean Sampling Day Handbook 3.1 (released April 2016) of the MicroB3 project.The protocols and log sheets for ODS2018 (adapted from the MicroB3 OSD Handbook 3.1) can be downloaded directly:

Please make sure that after you receive your signed permits (i.e. ABS, MTA, Data Policy), you send them to the above address. Having these permits is a pre-requisit for the sampling and for transferring material!

Legal Issues

Participants registered for the Ocean Sampling Day (OSD) 2018 need to comply with Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) requirements, as set out in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol (NP), and with the requirements laid out in the MTA and Data Policy documents, which cover the necessaries following the international law of the sea. Detailed instructions can be found in OSD2018_Legal_Permits_Procedure.

Electronically (print, sign, scan and send back as jpg or pdf) as soon as possible and

As hard copies (shipped together with your samples to HCMR, Greece), by July 16th

Furthermore, a different Data Policy document should be signed for every single station, i.e. a coordinator for 3 stations should send back 3 filled-in and signed versions of page 3 of the Data Policy document.

Background

The OSD2018 event is a continuation of the successful OSD events of Micro B3 project (https://www.microb3.eu/osd.html).
We are grateful to Professor Frank Oliver Glöckner and the MicroB3 community who have made OSD a global event.